Notizie

Italy’s Coccinelle Film Sales has acquired world rights to German director Veit Helmer’s poetic love story “Gondola,” which will world premiere at the upcoming Tokyo International Film Festival.

Helmer is well known on the international festival circuit for funny, fable-like films with little or no dialogue such as “Tuvalu”; the Azerbaijan-set “Absurdistan,” which went to Sundance in 2008; and “The Bra,” that launched from Tokyo in 2018.

“Gondola,” the tale of two cable car attendants who fall in love as they face each other going up and down the remote mountains of Georgia, is also told without dialogue.

“There are a few places on earth where you don’t hop on the bus in the morning, but on the cable car [instead],” Helmer said in his director’s statement. He added that “such a place in Georgia inspired me to write a story about two cable car conductors who always meet...

The buzzy regional event attrracted festival programmers from Cannes, Berlin and around the world.

Croatian director Sonja Tarokić’s debut feature The Staffroom was the big winner at the 69th edition of the Pula Film Festival when it received nine awards at the closing ceremony at the weekend in the port’s 2,000 year-old Roman amphitheatre.

The Croatian Programme Jury, headed by Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky, presented the film with the festival’s main award, the Grand Golden Arena for best festival film, as well as Golden Arenas for best director, best actor for Stojan Matavulj , best supporting actress, and best editing.

Igor Sterk has made a beautiful and complex film about life and death amid a police procedural film. More specifically, the film attempts to analyze how suicide has become such a prominent staple in the director’s home country of Slovenia. Yet how he approaches this topic is the real mystery; which may or may not ultimately be a good thing for some.

After a haunting opening scene that might illuminate the equally haunting ending, we are presented with a police investigation of an apparent suicide. A man parked his car on a bridge before hurling himself over the railing and into the water. The time on the victim’s wrist watch was … you guessed it … 9:06. Dusan (Igor Sambor) is hired to investigate the event. In doing so, he finds himself stepping into the deceased man’s shoes in more ways than one. Living in his place and impersonating...

While I do not think that something as edgy or unusual as Giorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth (pictured above) will make the 'final five' short list, but kudos to Greece for throwing it out there.  Perhaps something like Tetsuya Nakashima's Confessions will make the cut despite its similarly unsettling subject matter.  Either way, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did put out a big release yesterday with all of their Foreign Language film submissions, 65 of them in total even Greenland, from various countries.  Many of these films have reviews in our archives.

Albania, East West East, Gjergj Xhuvani

Algeria, Hors la Loi ("Outside the Law"), Rachid Bouchareb

Argentina, Carancho, Pablo Trapero

Austria, La Pivellina, Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel

Azerbaijan, The Precinct, Ilgar Safat

Bangladesh, Third Person Singular Number, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki

Belgium, Illegal, Olivier Masset-Depasse

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Circus Columbia, Danis Tanovic

Brazil, Lula the Son of Brazil,...

65 Countries Enter Race for 2010 Foreign Language Film Oscar®

Beverly Hills, CA: Sixty-five countries, including first-time entrants Ethiopia and Greenland, have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category for the 83rd Academy Awards®.

The 2010 submissions are:

.Albania, .East, West, East,. Gjergj Xhuvani, director;

.Algeria, .Hors la Loi. (.Outside the Law.), Rachid Bouchareb, director;

.Argentina, .Carancho,. Pablo Trapero, director;

.Austria, .La Pivellina,. Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, directors;

.Azerbaijan, .The Precinct,. Ilgar Safat, director;

.Bangladesh, .Third Person Singular Number,. Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, director;

.Belgium, .Illegal,. Olivier Masset-Depasse, director;

.Bosnia and Herzegovina, .Circus Columbia,. Danis Tanovic, director;

.Brazil, .Lula, the Son of Brazil,. Fabio Barreto, director;

.Bulgaria, .Eastern Plays,. Kamen Kalev, director;

.Canada, .Incendies,. Denis Villeneuve, director;

.Chile, .The Life of Fish,. Matias Bize, director;

.China, .Aftershock,. Feng Xiaogang, director;

.Colombia, .Crab Trap,. Oscar Ruiz Navia, director;

.Costa Rica, .Of Love and Other Demons,. Hilda Hidalgo, director;

.Croatia, .The Blacks,...

Semih Kaplanoglu's Bal / Honey Some of the 65 movies vying for the 2011 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar are obvious choices. [List of Oscar 2011 Foreign Language Film Submissions.] For instance, Semih Kaplanoglu's Bal / Honey (Turkey) won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Thailand) won the Palme d'Or at Cannes; and Igor Sterk's 9:06 (Slovenia) swept the Slovene Film Festival awards. Also, Denis Villeneuve's Incendies was chosen Best Canadian Film at the Toronto Film Festival; Biutiful (Mexico) was directed by a world-renowned filmmaker, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and features an international star, Javier Bardem; and Giorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth (Greece) was given the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes in 2009 (the film opened in Greece in November of that year, thus qualifying it for the 2011 Oscar). Many others are understandable choices, e.g., Xavier Beauvois' Of Gods and Men [...]...

I have been keeping track of all of the Foreign Language Oscar submissions in my "The Contenders" section of the site and today the official list of sixty-five films from sixty-five countries was unveiled by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for consideration for the 83rd Academy Awards. On January 20, 2011 a shortlist of nine contenders will be announced prior to the naming of the nominees on January 25, 2011.

I have included the complete list directly below, which includes first-time entrants Ethiopia and Greenland. The only film that was originally thought to be under consideration, but didn't show up on the Academy's final list was Afghanistan's entry, Black Tulip, directed by Sonia Nassery Cole. IMDb doesn't list a release date for the film, which means it may not have met the release requirements in time.

I have linked each film to their corresponding IMDb page for those films not included...

From Screen: “The Slovenian Film Fund announced today that the country’s submission for the best Foreign Language film Academy Award is Igor Sterk’s 9:06.” Subscribe to the comments for this post?...

9:06 (2009) Direction: Igor Sterk Screenplay: Igor Sterk and Sinisa Dragin Cast: Igor Samobor, Silva Cusin, Labina Mitevska, Jana Zupancic Igor Samobor 9:06 Some movies are hard to write about because they don’t have anything to say. Others are hard to write about because what they’re actually saying is either too complex and/or too muddled to be described in words. For better or for worse, you have to experience it. Igor Sterk’s sober, intriguing 9:06, which screens on Sunday at the South-East European Film Festival of Los Angeles at the Goethe Institut, falls into the latter category. Set within the framework of a mystery drama, 9:06 is actually a psychological study about a man, a Slovenian police officer named Dusan, obsessed with death. [...]...

Andrei Gruzsniczki’s The Other Irene with Andi Vasluianu looking for his missing wife (top); Nik Xhelilaj in Artan Minarolli’s Alive!, about Albanian blood feuds (upper middle); Igor Sterk’s 9:06, an unusual suicide case (lower middle); Maria Takacs‘ Secret Years featuring closeted lesbians during Communism (bottom) The 5th See Fest — Los Angeles’ South East European Film Festival — will take place at the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles and UCLA’s James Bridges Theatre from April 29 through May 3. According to its organizers, See Fest is the only festival in the United States dedicated to movies made in that (very, very) culturally diverse part of the world. [See Fest highlights] Among this year’s screening films are Artan Minarolli’s Alive!, an examination of the consequences [...]...

Year: 2009

Directors: Igor Sterk

Writers: Igor Sterk & Sinisa Dragin

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Review by: Rick McGrath

Rating: 9 out of 10

9:06 is a fascinating and compelling study of psychological transformation, brilliantly represented in the movie’s title, which at first glance may appear to be a sort of numerical half palindrome, but in actuality is a kind of upside down, twisted reflection of itself – and in this case, a potent symbol of how, under certain circumstances, one individual can be drawn into another.

It’s also the time. Twice a day.

Lots of times to die.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. 9:06 is ostensibly a fairly simple police mystery story – a man is dead, foul play? -- which director/writer Igor Sterk has dressed up with a complete wardrobe of cool and clever ideas that transforms a death into a study of the amiss and suicide-seeking mind.